Why does the time we spend cramming for life’s most trying tests always escape us before our focus is shifted to battling a more complex problem? During the college years, an unforeseen dichotomy develops where rushing becomes a normal state, whether it be to register for classes or to get through your last semester. But, when it’s over we grieve, for learning how to learn is what we lamented all this time. In this playlist, a look at the best practices for how to improve this very human process.

Jonathan Drori on what we think we know You know the contemptuous look you flash to the smartypants in the corner of the classroom? You’ll be glad to know that they, in fact, do not have an answer for everything. In this talk, Jonathan Drori makes a great argument about why all of us don’t actually understand as much as we think we do.

What we learned from 5 million books
Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel set out to explore how language has been shaped and changed as societies evolve, but in the process found out that a picture isn’t worth a thousand words — but rather 500 billion words. You can search through 5 million books at once, with the Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer, to see if “UGH” was as popular a century ago as it is today.

Joshua Foer: Feats of memory anyone can do
This science writer set out to discover how people with average memories train themselves to develop an extraordinary skill set at the United States Memory Championship — and won. In this talk, he gives techniques on how to sharpen your mind’s eye.

Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education
Five years ago, former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan helped refresh his cousins’ academic memory by putting video lessons on YouTube. Now, with over one million viewers, the Khan Academy offers a global community the ability to learn effectively with self-paced online lessons through videos.

Sunni Brown: Doodlers, unite!
Contrary to popular belief doodling isn’t the act of doing nothing. In this talk, Sunni Brown tells us that it is the physical act of a person engaging several types of learning to flush out an idea. So, go on and add doodling to the brainstorm!

.Carvens Lissaint: Put the financial aid in the bag
For recent graduates, debating the legitimacy of investing further in your education is a daunting thought. Watch this powerful spoken word lesson on financial aid and the stress that comes with needing it.

Starting with four basic questions (that you may be surprised to find you can’t answer), Jonathan Drori looks at the gaps in our knowledge — and specifically, what we don’t about science that we might think we do. (Recorded at TEDU, February 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 12:34.) Watch Jonathan Drori’s 2007 talk on TED.com, […]

Marcus Byrne begins today’s talk with the words: “What I want to do today is share my passion for poo with you.” But before you delve into a Freudian analysis, you should probably know that Byrne is an entomologist who studies dung beetles, of which there are about 6,000 species across the planet. As Byrne […]